Professor Anamarija Franki:

As an educator, I thank Senator Boylan for speaking about the next generation. We need to create not just jobs for today but for the future, which is why I am optimistic when I see my students. There is a solution for every problem we have today. We have to see it, as Dr. Whelan said, as an opportunity. We have to work together on this.

We created a programme to adopt a student for a green job, for which someone does not have to be aged ten or 70. My students can be 85 years old. This is where we need to work together to create the circular economy we speak about so theoretically. When my students leave my classroom, I do not know where they go and whether they find a job. Through adopt a student for a green job we can follow them when they stop studying. They can find their niche.

We need to start working with companies so these students can find their niche, support their local communities and find the solutions and be part of them, and not constantly be depressed with what is going on in the world today. Between the pandemic and climate change, my students ask me how I can smile. They ask me what I am on. I ask them to think about how we can use these circumstances as an opportunity to go back to nature and the human race, and be positive and use the resources of which we have more now than ever. Let us think about what we have today. We have knowledge, technology and resources. Even nature, which is screaming for help, will work with us. This is why we have to be positive and use this opportunity to build.

What is missing is an example. If we take Wicklow as an example, NORRI received a small grant for educational purposes with regard to everybody from kindergarten to the elderly. The elderly would love to contribute because they have traditional cultural knowledge that we are missing from the story. It would be great if we could create an example in Ireland or any other country, and I also speak about this when I am in Croatia, whereby we could show what we mean by sustainable development, resilience and linking science with technology and solutions. We do not have a living laboratory such as this. This is why Mr. Kavanagh and I put this together in Wicklow. We have the money and we would like to work with the committee to showcase the living laboratory in the local community. If we do not show the solutions to local communities, we will cause even more damage and depression than ever.